Believe it or not, we all choose our words
carefully. We speak differently when we
speak to our bosses, our mothers and our friends. However, when speaking a foreign language
sometimes it’s easy for these differences to get lost in translation and you
end up speaking to your boss as if he were your child. Worrisome or embarrassing at best, it’s
important to learn about register in English.
Here we’re going to give you some examples about how you can speak
formally and informally but it’s up to you to decide when to use each one.

1.Greetings.

A simple “Hello” is a
great go-to greeting for friends, family or colleagues. To be even a bit more formal, you can try
“Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” or “Good evening.”

When talking to your
friends you can sound more relaxed by saying “Hey there,” “Hi,” “What’s up?” or
“How’s it going?”

2.Making a request:

In Spanish, there’s a strong tendency to use the imperative form (“Dame el boli; Pásame ese papel”). However, in English we tend to form these
requests as questions using “can” or “could”.

Now let’s look at a formal way to ask these same questions:

“I’m sorry to bother you but could you let me borrow your pen?”

“Would you mind passing me that paper over there?”

In informal requests we’re more
relaxed but the imperative still sounds quite demanding. Sometimes we emper it with a tag question:

“Can I borrow your pen?”

“Pass that paper, will you?”

3.Expressing emotion.

Giving positive feedback or congratulating someone is always
appreciated but it’s not really appropriate to say, “Cool!” or “Sweet!” to your
boss or professor.

You could say, “Wow, that’s great news.” Or “I’m really impressed,
that’s amazing.” Excellent, wonderful,
incredible and terrific are some other options.

Take the bull by the horns
Así de claro, "coger al toro por los cuernos".

Take the bull by the horns and deal with this situation in a firm way. Conversation on Skype with a personal teacher will grant you the confidence you need in order to let the words flow easily. You can learn a different vocabulary, like idioms or why not some slang, with your own teacher. It's a one-to-one exchange, where you can repeat the right pronunciation and correct your mistakes in a friendly way. The icing on the cake !*